BMW i5 Review 2024

Provided cost isn’t a barrier and you’ve got somewhere to charge it, then the BMW i5 makes a very strong case for itself if you’re looking for a swift and comfortable executive car. It retains all the qualities that made previous BMW 5 Series among the best cars in its class, and adds the strengths of a well-developed electric car.

The BMW i5 eDrive40 is already such a complete product, it’s difficult to imagine wanting anything more. It doesn’t have the truly eye-opening acceleration of the xDrive M60, but it’s still quick enough to thrill, and the M60’s hefty outlay - from around £98,000 compared to around £67,000 for the eDrive40 - doesn’t buy you any more refinement, nor range. In terms of trim level, the entry-level Sport Edition trim provides plenty, although the more popular M Sport model does admittedly look a little sharper.

Closest in concept to the BMW i5 is the Mercedes-Benz EQE, which acts as Mercedes’ de facto electric E-Class. Its bar-of-soap look is probably even more of an acquired taste than the BMW’s angular styling, and while the AMG 53 version is quicker than the M60, it’s also more expensive. The EQE offers a longer range on paper, while the BMW counters with better performance at equivalent pricing.

The Audi e-tron GT and Porsche Taycan are also worth considering, though technology has moved on so quickly that neither stands out for its abilities as much as it did at launch. There’s always the Tesla Model S, too, but Tesla is now only offering it in left-hand-drive form in the UK, and it’s less of a driver’s car than the BMW.

This is a real highlight of the BMW i5. BMW’s recent models have been class-leading in this area and the i5 is no exception. The interior has the warm, inviting nature you typically get from Mercedes, with the kind of fit and finish accuracy and solidity we’ve come to expect from Audi.

It’s similarly impressive on the outside, too, with one curious exception: reflections in the flat sides betray how the perimeter of each door seems to curve in slightly before the shutline. Audi definitely still has the edge on precision panelwork, it seems.

As alluded to further up, all BMW i5s get a large, curved display screen that incorporates both a 12.3-inch display ahead of the driver, and a wide 14.9-inch touchscreen for the infotainment. It looks fantastic, as these wide screens often do, avoiding any “floating iPad” accusations, but it also works well, and comes bundled with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration as standard.

It will certainly take an owner a little time to fully decipher everything. Air conditioning controls have permanent shortcuts at the lower edge of the screen and they’re simple enough to deal with, and you can pull down a shortcut menu from the top for commonly-used features. Naturally, you can also spin the iDrive dial on the centre console, with its own shortcut buttons positioned nearby.

There’s just a lot to go through, so it’d be worth experimenting with at a standstill first. If you’re parked, you can also watch YouTube, if you’ve bought the right data package, and the screen’s excellent resolution means it should look pretty good, too. For the driver, the i5’s large head-up display is also top-notch for clarity.

Whether in the front or back, the BMW i5 is a spacious car. The 5 Series hasn’t been a cramped car for quite a while now, but in expanding the latest car in every direction (the i5 is 5060mm long, 1900mm wide without mirrors, and 1515mm tall), BMW has certainly found more rear legroom, and the dashboard layout seems to make the cabin feel more inviting and airy, even if the actual driving environment is no bigger than before.

Where the i5 loses a little to its predecessor, albeit not by much, is in boot space. The combustion-powered 5 Series gets a 520-litre boot, 10 litres down on the previous car (no doubt a result of that sloping design at the rear), but the i5’s big battery pack reduces that further to 490 litres. Still big, then, but if you’re concerned about losing space for whatever it is you carry, an i5 Touring estate is also available.

BMW keeps things simple with the i5 lineup. There’s a single 83.9kWh battery pack, with 81.2kWh of usable capacity. There’s a little more variety in the motors. Both the eDrive40 and the M60 xDrive get a 340PS electric motor on the rear axle, but the M60 adds a 261PS motor for the front wheels, too. That gets you a combined 601PS in total, and of course, all-wheel drive.

The single-motor eDrive40 finds excellent traction (helped by sophisticated electronics to minimise wheel spin) to accelerate from 0-62mph in 6.0 seconds, while top speed is capped at 120mph, presumably to preserve range even on derestricted German autobahns. The M60 is quicker still, with a supercar-style 0-62mph of 3.8 seconds, and a raised 142mph limiter.

The M60 really throws you back in your seat under hard acceleration (and gets even quicker with a tug of the Boost paddle behind the steering wheel) but even the eDrive40 is still very brisk. Thankfully, the brakes are up to the task of slowing them both down again, with a relatively firm pedal action that does a good job of hiding the fact that the braking system is mostly slowing you down with the motor’s regenerative effect, at least initially.

With one battery size and two different power outputs, it’s the less powerful of the two BMW i5s that naturally goes a little further on a charge. The i5 eDrive40 has a WLTP-rated range of 354 miles, while its more powerful M60 counterpart can do only 315 miles in comparison. We’d expect real-world range to be a touch lower: BMW claims efficiency of 3.8 miles per kilowatt hour for the eDrive40 and 3.4 mi/kWh for the M60, figures that heavier-footed drivers may struggle to attain.

The i5’s regenerative braking is quite effective, but does vary according to where the car thinks it should be deployed: it’ll tend to coast on a motorway, but if a slower speed limit is coming up, or the car detects other traffic in front, it’ll deploy more regeneration to slow you down for it.

The BMW i5 is a very refined car. Save for a little suspension noise over rougher roads, audible as dull thuds more than clonks or crashes, the i5 isolates road noise very effectively. It does a similarly good job of keeping wind noise to a minimum: there’s a general whoosh at higher speeds on the motorway but it’s far from intrusive, and given there’s no engine noise contributing to the party, the i5 feels relaxed on almost any road.

In fact, the loudest noises are the deliberate sounds under hard acceleration that BMW hired composer Hans Zimmer to create. These are at their most prominent in sport mode, but disappear entirely at a cruise or under gentle acceleration.

The BMW i5 was crash tested by Euro NCAP in 2023, and it - along with the rest of the 5 Series range - was awarded the full five-star rating for crash safety. Adult occupant protection was rated at 89%, while  child occupant protection was scored at 85% and protection of vulnerable road users was awarded 86%. The car's safety assist score was 78%. The car comes with most of the safety measures and driver assistance technologies you expect, while a few more can be added with the optional (and expensive) Technology Plus Pack.

The BMW i5's long-term reliability is difficult to judge at this early stage. BMWs tend to achieve middling results in reliability surveys. The brand’s first proper EV, the i3, had some teething troubles unique to its somewhat pioneering approach, but things steadily improved over time, to the point where in the latest 2023 Honest John Satisfaction Index, the i3 featured in the list of the top ten most reliable cars in the entire study. That's probably partly because electric power tends to mean fewer moving parts, lower maintenance costs, and fewer things to potentially go wrong.

Nice easy one, this. Go for the eDrive40 version, and your car will sit in insurance group 43 (of 50, with 50 being the most expensive) regardless of which trim level you specify it in. Go for the M60 xDrive, and it'll be group 49 for you. As easy as this may be to understand, it also means that all version of the i5 will be - somewhat unsurprisingly - very expensive to insure.

VED or ‘road tax’ for zero-emission vehicles like the BMW i5 is currently free, so there’s no up-front tax payment when buying new, nor any subsequent payment, despite the i5 costing well over the £40,000 threshold that normally attracts a hefty surcharge. This is likely to change from 2025.

Initially, the BMW i5 range opened with the i5 eDrive40 M Sport. Standard equipment for this includes Veganza artificial leather trim, a rear lip spoiler, ambient lighting, wireless phone charging, sports seats, air conditioning with pre-heating, Harman Kardon audio, M Sport suspension with rear self-levelling, 19-inch alloy wheels, parking and reverse assistants, BMW Live Cockpit Plus augmented reality for the satnav, smartphone integration.

Next up is M Sport Pro trim on the eDrive40, which gets BMW’s “Iconic Glow” grille design - a striking lit outline for the kidney grille - as well as black-tinted headlight housings, black exterior details, M seatbelts, and 20-inch alloy wheels as standard.

The i5 M60 xDrive comes with Iconic Glow as standard, over a dedicated M60 interpretation of the grille, a red centre marker for the steering wheel, Adaptive M Suspension Professional with Active Roll Stabilisation, Bowers & Wilkins audio, red brake calipers, optional 22kW AC charging, memory seats, and privacy glass.

Midway through 2024, a new entry-level trim was introduced called Sport Edition. You lose some of the M Sport's edgy styling, but to be fair, you don't lose too much in the way of luxury kit, so you shouldn't feel like you're slumming it. The more pivotal difference is the Sport Edition's suspension, which is softer than the M Sport's, which may improve the latter version's slightly brittle ride. We'll let you know if it does once we've tried it.